Colin Farrell has revealed he’s happy to be slightly less famous these days and describes being a celebrity as “madness”.

The Hollywood star, 40, said he had about five years of “incredible fame” but enjoys a quieter life now.

The Dubliner said: “I don’t feel part of it at all – the whole fame thing and celebrity thing.

“I mean, I really don’t. When I started – when I was lucky enough to get me first American film – then it all went mad so fast for me and I had a period of maybe five or six years of incredible fame and recognisability and all that.

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The father-of-two also credited a few box-office flops for his star fading slightly.

He said: “That’s since gone – a few films that didn’t quite work at the box office! God.

“Having films that are seen by audiences if they’re good and they connect is a wonderful thing, but I’m glad that period of madness is over for me in my life.”

The In Bruges actor was speaking Hugh Grant for an upcoming episode of Variety and PBS’s “Actors on Actors.”

Unlike many modern A-listers, Farrell said that he doesn’t have social media and intends to keep his private life private.

He said: “Two or three times a year I may stamp on a red carpet and do some interviews or do this kind of thing.

“Outside of that, social media I don’t have and I feel very outside of it.”

Brendan Gleeson, director Martin McDonagh, and Colin Farrell at the "In Bruges" press conference during the 2008 Sundance Film Festival

The pair also spoke candidly about the difference between choosing roles that mean something to them versus films that they know will be a box-office success.

Love Actually actor Hugh said: “It’s an entertainment business. “If you’re not entertaining people and you’re only really pleasing your peers, so you get recognition and awards and things, then I think it can become a fraction masturbatory.”

Farrell agreed with Grant’s comments and admitted he craves approval.

He said: “That would bore the hell out of me and I know there is a part of me that wants to be liked, and there is a part of me that wants my peers to think I’m decent at what I do.

“Absolutely. But to kind of blindly pursue that, or have that be the thing that conditions how I choose roles, would be terrible. It’d be so boring to me.”